Storing cooking vessels without their handles can significantly reduce the overall size of a set of saucepans and frying pans. As a result, an increasing number of cooking vessels include a removable handle assembly.
In order to favor the mechanical retention of the removable handle assembly on the cooking vessel, a certain number of vessels have been designed with a projecting stud, referred to as the “predisposition stud,” fixed to the periphery. However, such a cooking vessel allows gripping in only one position and proves dependent on the condition of this stud.
Consequently, most cooking vessels with a removable handle assembly are now designed with removable handle assemblies for fixing onto cooking vessels with no predisposition studs. A removable handle assembly with no predisposition stud generally employs the principle of a clamp applying clamping forces over a large area of a lateral wall of the cooking vessel.
EP1523265 describes a removable handle assembly having a mobile jaw that can translate relative to a handle. The mobile jaw has a clamping position, in which it presses the lateral wall of the cooking vessel against the handle, and a release position, in which it is moved away from the handle. To make the user safe, the handle assembly includes a locking mechanism designed to prevent the mobile jaw from being moved away when it is in the clamping position.
In order to ensure satisfactory mechanical strength of the removable handle assembly if high forces are applied to the vessel, the mobile jaw and the handle have a relatively large surface in contact with the vessel. As these contact surfaces must clamp a substantially cylindrical wall of the saucepan, such a handle assembly proves inappropriate for satisfactory clamping of cooking vessels with greatly different diameters or induces an unacceptable deformation or surface damage of the vessel to prevent the presence of play in any of the configurations. These problems must be solved without making the locking of the removable handle assembly onto the vessel less safe.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,059,809 describes a removable handle assembly for a cooking vessel. The handle assembly includes a gripping body, a front end of which forms a flared jaw. The handle assembly further includes a rotatable flared mobile jaw mounted on the gripping body.